This explains why the French are so good at inverted snobbery. Just as French artists will claim (untruthfully) that they don’t care if no one buys their paintings, the rich are very skilled at looking poor. Or trying to, anyway.
I have spent a couple of summers on the île de Ré, just off the west coast of France, which is the country’s capital of inverted snobbery. Everyone who’s anyone in Paris has a house there, but none of them want to talk about it – the island is so trendy that house prices have become absurd. And you pay ISF on the potential value of your belongings, not the cash you get if you sell. Consequently, the rich Parisians try to blend in with the locals (and simultaneously disassociate themselves from the holidaymakers who rent places for the summer or – horrors – stay at campsites on the island). Look closely at that weatherbeaten fisherman walking along the quai at the swanky port of Saint Martin en Ré and you’ll see that his faded shirt has a Ralph Lauren label, his shapeless shorts are by Lacoste and those deck shoes are in fact battered Gucci loafers. He might have arrived at the quai in an ancient Citroën 2CV or – even more chic – on a rusting pushbike, but this is only because his discreetly powerful Renault is in the tumbledown garage beside his island house. And if Johnny Depp were to ask him where the nearest chocolate shop was, he would snootily tell him to enquire at the nearest office de tourisme.
It’s not that the rich Frenchman wants to be invertedly snobbish, you understand. He has to do it to protect his wealth. Richesse oblige.
Skeletons in the Cupboard
Housebuying is another subject shrouded in secrecy.
France makes the process less nerve-racking than it is in some other countries, with its system of signing a promesse de vente or compromis de vente – an agreement to buy, with a seven-day cooling-off period for the buyer. Once this is signed, the seller cannot accept any better offers. It is a great protection against gazumping, but even so, buyers can fall victim to a web of secrecy.
Of course, when buying a home, the French hire solicitors to make sure that there are no plans to run a motorway through the kitchen. They also demand to see proof that the building is not infested with termites or riddled with amiante (asbestos). But almost no one commissions a structural survey to make sure that the place is not simply going to fall down of its own accord. I mentioned the possibility of surveying the building when I bought my first small apartment in Paris, and the estate agent looked at me as if I’d just asked for proof that the world wasn’t flat. In any case, if I’d found someone to do a survey, and discovered that all the supporting walls in the building had been removed and the place was being held up by the telephone cables, it would have done me no good. The agent would simply have replied, OK, so do you want to buy it or not? If not, no problem, because the next set of potential buyers won’t commission a survey.
Instead, I have found it useful to go around an apartment with a builder while the agent or seller is present. The builder can then poke at things, measure damp and stare inscrutably into corners, uttering the odd meaningful ‘hmmmm’ and questions like ‘And when exactly was this doorway put in?’ This direct, less administrative, more secretive method can scare the sellers, and helped me negotiate a big discount on my second, larger, apartment. I went into a huddle with the builder and put in a low offer, without explaining why, and it was accepted. Two can play at the secrecy game.
In small towns, if the seller of a house or land has friends in the town hall, all manner of undesirable facts can be covered up or forgotten. How else would so many houses be sold in flood zones in the Languedoc? And why did Monsieur Dupont get permission to add an extra storey on to his cottage, and the estate agent assure the prospective buyers of the house next door that they would be able to do the same, when permission was refused out of hand once the deal was done? Or, even worse, why did the mairie send you a letter saying that your entire barn conversion was not conforme, and demanding that said barn be demolished, the day after you bought it?
The answer is an open secret – the best protection against getting caught out is to do your own research. It sounds incredibly obvious, but you have to go and see the property. Even if you know you’re buying a ruin with no electricity, how can you be sure that your pile of stones doesn’t look out over an out-of-town industrial estate? The French are great fans of blighting their countryside with a splattering of furniture warehouses, hypermarkets and roadside restaurants. Then again, there are probably people who dream of a conservatory with an uninterrupted – and very French – view of Conforama, Carrefour and Buffalo Grill.
If you’re buying in a village, it’s a good idea to go to the mairie and make enquiries about past planning applications for your prospective property, and present ones for the neighbouring houses or fields.
If you’re buying an apartment, it is essential to delve into the minutes of past owners’ meetings.
